


More Than Blood

by skeletondust



Series: Final Fantasy XV: Moments In Time [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate MT interpretation, Alternate Story Interpretation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dad!Cor, Everybody Lives, FFXV AU, Hurt/Comfort, Prompto Leonis AU, everybody lives au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletondust/pseuds/skeletondust
Summary: Cor Leonis must have been insane to kidnap a child from one of Niflheim's bases, but he must have been even crazier to decide to adopt the kid.///(My take on the idea of dad!Cor)





	1. The Infiltration

_ October 25th, M.E. 738, Succarpe region, Niflheim _

The chill night air of the desert was starting to get under Cor’s skin. Or maybe it was just the discomfort of waiting in open enemy territory. They may have had the cover of night on their backs, but that was all they had. There were no trees or shrubs or even boulders anywhere nearby to block them from the sight of the Nif base ahead, just sand dune after sand dune and clouds covering the light of the moon.

It was a simple enough mission. Infiltrate the base, grab as much information on magitek soldiers as possible, and get out. It was a low-security base, probably because it was in the middle of the desert, which only made it easier to get in and out in as little time as possible. Once they were out, they were to make their way a few miles west to Cartanica Station, take the train to a harbor in Tenebrae, and make their way back to Insomnia. Easy peasy, as the king would be loath to refer to it as. Regardless of how easy it seemed, there was still any number of things that could go wrong. Being caught in the lack of cover before they even made it within twenty feet of the building was only one of them.

“Dustin, how’re we looking?”

Dustin was kneeling on top of the sand dune, trying to keep himself as low to the ground as possible. He was the youngest and most inexperienced of the group, yet he was still an incredible soldier.

“Almost time,” He said, peering through night vision goggles at the facility.

“These guards sure do change rotations slowly,” Monica sighed. She sat at the base of the dune, back to the facility. The lack of cover seemed to be getting to her, too, or else she was just impatient. Wouldn’t be all that surprising, with how seriously she took her job.

“They are robots,” Cor commented.

“Well, we’ll see if that’s true soon.” Dustin stood up and started towards the facility. “Let’s go.”

Despite technically being in charge of the operation, Cor didn’t question the order, just started moving, Monica close behind. They were at the back of the facility in less than a minute. They slipped through a hole in the fence- which was either an oversight on the Nif’s part, or else they were far too confident in their security- and rushed to the back loading dock, ducking inside and behind a metal crate just before the doors slid closed. They waited for the guard rotation to exit the area before continuing onwards.

Navigating the base wasn’t a simple feat. There were no cameras for some inexplicable reason that Cor could only attribute to arrogance, but guards were stationed to patrol nearly every hallway, and the entire place was basically one huge labyrinth. Dustin had somehow memorized the layout from the blueprints they had managed to gather, though who knew if those were entirely accurate or not. It took nearly an hour of hiding from patrols, barely dodging out of sight in time, making wrong turns, and backtracking for them to  _ finally  _ reach the room they were looking for- at least, the room they  _ thought  _ they were looking for. This facility may not have had any information on magitek soldiers, and could just be a medical research facility as the Nifs claimed.

Monica got to work on picking the electronic lock to the room while Dustin and Cor stood guard, weapons ready to be drawn. It barely took her two minutes, but she briefly paused after the door silently slid open. No alarms went off, and she and Dustin headed inside to begin cracking at the computers. Cor, far more suited to physical combat and bodyguarding, stood in the doorway, hand on his sword just in case.

“Anything of interest?” He asked after a few more minutes. They needed to leave soon or else they might not make it to Cartanica before the sun rose, but he wasn’t one to push in stressful situations. That only lead to mistakes, usually grave ones.

“Anything that  _ might  _ be interesting is encrypted,” Dustin answered.

“Might explain the relaxed security.” At least, it was relaxed for a Nif base. “Can any of it be downloaded?”

The answer came in form of keyboard tapping and the small click of a cap being put on a USB. “Only as much as we can fit on this,” Monica said, stuffing the USB in one of her pockets.

Exiting the room, she started working on locking the door again- couldn’t leave any trace that they were ever there, after all. Everything was going surprisingly well. Maybe they would make it out without an incident.

The door slid shut, and alarms starting blaring.

“ _ Shit _ .”

The two closest magitek guards rushed into the hall. Without a second of hesitation Cor pulled out his sword and cut them both down. Ugly metallic screams came from the robots, but were silenced with one more swipe of the blade.

“Let’s go!” He barked.

They ran, not even bothering to kill every guard they came upon. They cut them down, shoved them, incapacitated them, just did anything to get them out of the way so they could keep running.

They had made it about halfway to the docking area when things really took a turn for the worse. Magitek troopers were suddenly pouring out from what seemed like nowhere. Of course they had passed right by the storage rooms on the way in.

It didn’t matter how skilled they three of them were. Fighting in such a confined space as difficult enough on its own, but now they were quickly being outnumbered.

There was only one way out of it. Cor hated it.

Pulling on the king’s magic, Cor summoned up a ball of fire in his hand. He wasn’t exactly what one would call ‘talented’ when it came to magic, and frankly he hated using it, but when it came down to it he always did what he needed to do.

“Brace yourselves!” He shouted, and Monica and Dustin dived out of the way.

He slammed his fist into the ground. The magic exploded outwards, engulfing the MTs in its flames in mere seconds. The screams and the pops from breaking, melting metal joints only lasted a few seconds longer. The fire sputtered out soon after.

“Leonis?” Monica’s anxious voice called.

Breathing heavily from the smoke and the effort of using magic, Cor looked up to the source of the voice, but his sight was blocked. Part of the wall and ceiling had collapsed in the blast.

“Leonis!” Dustin shouted.

“I’m fine!” He answered, followed by a cough.

“I don’t think we’re gonna be able to get through this to get to you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Cor pushed himself to his feet. “Just get out of here. I’ll find another way out.”

“You sure?” Monica asked.

“You have the information Insomnia needs. Get it out of here. If worse comes to worse, I’ll meet you at Cartanica.”

There was a hesitant silence.

“That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir!” They both said, and left.

Cor sighed. He always managed to get himself into some shit, didn’t he? He’d been in the crownsguard for sixteen years and he’d been in more trouble than anyone he could think of. That didn’t really matter right then, though. What mattered was finding a new exit.

The further he went the less guards there were. The facility obviously had a limited supply of MTs, and it seemed like the explosion had knocked most of them out, otherwise this area had less of a need for guards. Either way, it made things easier for him.

It didn’t seem like he was anywhere closer to any kind of exit. But who really knew? Every hallway was the same, stretching on longer than seemed possible, made up entirely of shades of white and gray, and flooded with the flashing red lights of the alarm. Cor moved as fast as he could while keeping an eye out for anything that might lead him out of the building. Even the front entrance sounded better than staying in this godsforsaken place.

Turning down yet another hallway and bursting through a set of double doors, things started to look a bit more promising. The doors here had windows and little name plates next to them with numbers on them. It looked vaguely more like a standard research facility, one that had been evacuated hastily by the few researchers working overnight. Papers scattered on the floor, various dropped items, all that. He figured he was closer to the proper entrance to the facility, which meant a way out, finally.

His search was interrupted by the faint sound of clanking. Shit, of course there were MTs stationed near the front.

Cor rounded another corner but quickly backed up, pressing him against a wall. He swore. Five MTs wouldn’t usually be anything but after the fireball, he was pretty spent. Avoiding more fighting was the ideal.

The troopers were getting closer. He needed a place to hide. There were plenty of rooms nearby, so Cor dived into the closest set of doors and waited. Only once the MTs had passed did he let himself breathe.

He stood up, but kept a crouched stance. He took in his surroundings. The room looked like some sort of medical research room, if they did medical research in hell. Strange machines lined the walls, and what looked like shiny autopsy tables sat in the middle. Next to the tables were carts holding terrifying medical instruments and needles full of Bahamut-knows-what. What the hell did they do here? Dissect daemons?

One of the tables was turned over, the cart of instruments and needles spilled out and broken on the floor. Cor walked closer and kicked one of the tools, shaking his head. This whole place was insane.

There was a noise. It came from under the desk at the end of the room, right near the overturned table. Cor readied his sword, just in case. If they really wear dissecting daemons…

He kicked the chair blocking the desk out of the way, and immediately froze.

There was a child under the desk. A scrawny, probably malnourished, terrified little boy. He was covered in bandages and was nearly shaking out of his skin. He had his hands over his ears, clearly trying to block out the screeching of the alarms. He was whimpering.

“Shiva’s freezing tits,” Cor exclaimed. What the  _ fuck  _ was a child doing abandoned in a place like this? Cor could only imagine, and the only thing that came to mind when he wondered why the boy was left behind was that he would have been a liability. The Nifs were even worse than he had thought. The kid couldn’t have been any older than three or four.

He had to get going, to get out of this damn place and book it to Cartanica. He should’ve left the second the guards had passed, but… He couldn’t possibly leave a  _ child  _ behind, could he? The trained soldier in him was going through every possible thing that could go wrong if he brought the kid along with him, but every other part of him was ignoring that. He didn’t know kids really well, nor was he really a fan of them, but he wasn’t some child-hating asshole. He knew a few kids. He saw the way Clarus acted with his son, and how much King Regis adored Noctis. He saw how innocent children were.

He couldn’t just leave the kid there. It was completely against regulation, if there even was any regulation to this kind of situation, and Clarus was probably going to kick his ass for kidnapping a child, but to hell with the consequences. It was so painfully obvious that this kid was no one important to the Nifs, that he was just another one of their experiments. He wasn’t going to leave a child to that kind of a life.

Cor kneeled down, put his sword on the floor, and reached out towards the boy. He flinched and looked up in fear. Tears stained his face.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Cor said softly, though still loud enough to be heard over the still blaring alarms. “It’s okay, really.”

The boy didn’t respond, just stared at him.

“Listen, I’m gonna pick you up, and I’m gonna carry you out of here. Alright?”

Again, he said nothing. Cor reached out slowly, carefully grabbing the boy from underneath the desk and lifting him up. He didn’t struggle or protest in any way. Cor tried not to think of what that implied. There would be plenty of time for speculating the disgusting possibilities once they were out.

Cor hoisted the boy on one hip and grabbed his sword with his free hand. He paused in the doorway, listening for guards. Something in the distance, maybe, it was hard to tell with the alarms, but there was definitely nothing close enough to catch them.

“Okay, kid. Let’s go.” He took a breath, and stepped out the door.

There were no guards in the halls as he moved forwards, and none in the stairwell he found. They had probably moved to the back of the facility, where they had originally been spotted. Robots had one-track minds, and Cor was grateful that the Nifs hadn’t figured out a way to change that quite yet.

The stairwell lead them to what looked like a parking garage for the employees. No guards there, either. Cor shook his head, barely believing how lucky he was getting. Didn’t matter, though, he’d take whatever he could get.

He doubted he’d get lucky enough to get a car, though. This wasn’t some movie and hotwiring cars was a lot more difficult than it looked, and not worth the time. They needed to get out fast and with the dark of night, despite the lack of cover, they had a better chance of that on foot than in a vehicle. Even if driving sounded a lot better than walking several miles just to sit on a cramped train, safety and strategy were far more important.

His luck continued out of the building. With all of the employees evacuated and all of the MTs still focused towards the back, Cor was able to slip quietly through the garage and parking lot, and pass an unguarded entrance. The Nifs still had some work to do on those robots of theirs. He glanced at the position of the moon and stepped off of the road, heading West towards Cartanica.

Finally, Cor was able to process everything that had just happened, and his head spun.

He must have been  _ completely  _ insane. Blowing up part of the facility was one thing that could be easily explained away to Clarus, but kidnapping a child? He might have just risked the integrity of the entire mission. But what choice did he have? Anyone in their right mind would have grabbed the child. Even Clarus, the biggest stickler for protocol, would have done the same, he was sure of it.

It didn’t matter now, anyway. He had already made his choice. It’s not like the Nifs would even care that the kid was missing, seeing as they had just left him behind as everyone else evacuated. Now, the little boy was shaking in his arms. He’d been quiet for the entire ordeal, but now his teeth were chattering.

Cor sighed. “Desert nights are always freezing, aren’t they?” He took his jacket off, careful not to drop the boy as he did, and draped it around his shoulders. “There.”

The sky was beginning to brighten ever so slightly, and he could see the train station in the distance. He was going to have fun explaining all of this to Monica and Dustin.


	2. The Journey Home, Part 1

_October 26th, M.E. 738, Cartanica Station, Niflheim_

 

As the sun rose, it dyed the horizon red and orange, and the clouds a soft shade of pink. It would be a beautiful sight to behold, if Cor wasn’t practically asleep on his feet. He trudged up the stairs to Cartanica, the almost weightless little boy now feeling like a cinder block in his arms. He couldn’t wait to sit down on the train and take a well deserved nap. He was sure the kid was looking forward to it too, seeing as he had been forcing himself to stay awake since they had left the facility, despite the fact that he could easily have fallen asleep in Cor’s arms like any other kid probably would have done.

 

He sighed once they made it to the top of the stairs. It wasn’t time to rest yet, but at least he could stop walking.

 

“Alright, kid. We’re here. I’m putting you down now.” He tried to place the kid on his feet, but he just plopped to ground like a sack of potatoes.. “Guess you’re as tired as I am.”

 

“Leonis!” Monica jogged towards him, but froze a small ways away. “Cor…”

 

Cor ignored her slightly accusatory tone and picked his jacket up from where it had fallen near the boy. He pulled it back on just as Dustin was catching up with them.

 

“Hey, you made it out! Thank Baha...Why do you have a kid?”

 

Cor didn’t respond immediately, instead taking a second to stretch out his arms, stalling just a bit. “He was in the facility. Abandoned. I don’t know why he was there, but they were doing something to him and it wasn’t any medical research.”

 

Both of the two officers blinked at him. Dustin was the first to speak up. “So you just… took him.”

 

“They just left him there, like he was some kind of liability to them. You couldn’t have expected me to do the same,” He sighed.

 

“What I didn’t expect was for Cor the Immortal to have a heart,” Monica said, smiling at him. If she were nearly anybody else, she would’ve gotten punched for that, but they had been friends for far too long. Cor grinned, ever so slightly.

 

Monica kneeled down next to the child. “Hey there,” She greeted quietly. He glanced up at her. The look on his face was indescribable, but it seemed like he was expecting… something. Something bad. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m Cor’s friend. My name’s Monica. I just want to make sure you aren’t hurt anywhere, okay? Can I see your arms first?”

 

The little boy lifted his arms up about half way to Monica’s open hands but then hesitated for a moment. Monica just waited. Confusion crossed the kid’s face but he lifted up his arms the rest of the way. Monica carefully rolled up his sleeves and tugged off the taped on bandages as gently as possible.

 

His arms were practically covered in unhealed marks from where he must have been jabbed with needles by uncaring hands. Some looked like they would heal normally, some looked infected, but the strange black scabs around them was like nothing any of them had seen before. The worst of it, however, was the barcode tattooed on his right wrist.

 

“What in Pitioss…” Dustin breathed.

 

Cor could only stare. He didn’t know if he wanted to know what had been done to this kid. He couldn’t even imagine what the damn barcode meant, but he knew it couldn’t have been anything good. It could only be something terrible. Actually, Cor _could_ imagine what it meant, but he didn’t want to. He _really_ didn’t want to.

 

Monica frowned, but pushed a kind smile on her face for the sake of the kid, and pulled his sleeves back down. “Thank you. We can get you cleaned up later and put some cool bandaids on those, okay?”

 

The boy just blinked. He didn’t seem to understand. Monica glanced at Dustin before going to pick the boy up. He lurched backwards in fear, yelping as he fell back on the wooden boardwalk. Taken aback, Monica stepped back quickly, not wanting to frighten the boy further. She just looked at Cor, pressing her lips together.

 

Cor just sighed. “Alright, kid, c’mon,” He said, leaning down and scooping him up in his arms. He didn’t flinch or try to squirm his way out. Actually, he practically curled himself up into a ball in Cor’s arms. “So you like me? Bad decision. Monica’s nicer.”

 

The kid was shaking. He was exhausted, probably hungry and sick, but mostly terrified. Cor wrapped his arms tighter around him, hoping he could be some sort of comfort.

 

Dustin sighed. “So, what now?”

 

“We follow the original plan, but we take the kid along,” Cor answered. “I’ll handle explaining everything to Clarus.”

 

The younger man looked as though he were ready to argue, but a glare from Cor kept him silent. He shook his head and turned towards the ticket booth.

 

Monica shrugged when her eyes met Cor’s. “C’mon, we should buy some things for the ride. It’s almost a day to Tenebrae from here. We should probably grab some clothes for this little one, too.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, got it.”

 

“And some food he could eat, like snacks! Kids like snacks, right?”

 

“Pretty sure that’s why they make them so colorful.”

 

The two began towards the nearby market place, a small cluster of tables and stands selling all sorts of goods, ranging from traveling needs to random knick-knacks and souvenirs. Cor started sifting through the necessities while Monica searched for stuff for the kid. Cor had no eye for size, and Monica was mother to at least six cats so she definitely knew something about how to take care of another living being.

 

Dustin walked over to them just as Cor was finalizing his purchases, meaning he was handing gil over to some random woman. Niflheim, or at least the smaller places like this, was lacking in the amazing technology that was cash registers.

 

“Here, got the tickets,” He said as the three- four, technically, regrouped. “Ticket guy tried to make friendly conversation so I made up a cover story for us. You two are married, he’s your kid, I’m your brother, and we’re heading to a wedding.” He pointed at each person as he spoke.

 

“ 'spose that works,” Monica said.

 

“Not like many are gonna ask,” Cor grumbled.

 

“But if they do…”

 

“I got it.”

 

The train arrived within the next half an hour. They ran into no trouble while boarding, other than a few questions about where their luggage was and why the boy was shaking (quickly explained away as ‘stolen’ and ‘he’s sick’). Fortunately, since they were on the long trips/overnight train, they got their own room, meaning they could talk mostly in peace. Cor was soon hounded with questions about the kid, where he found him, how he escaped with him, how he managed to be simultaneously so lucky and unlucky when it came to missions, blah, blah, blah. He answered them as simply and as quickly as he could so he could get some godsdamn sleep before getting to Tenebrae. The questions petered down after a bit, the other two crownsguard mostly satisfied with his answers.

 

Just as he was about to lay down, he looked over at the little boy on the seat near the window. Despite the very, very clear exhaustion on his face, he was keeping himself up through what seemed like pure willpower. Or maybe it was just hunger and discomfort. Cor tried not to think about any other option there might be.

 

“Hey, kid,” He said, keeping his voice low. Monica had already fallen asleep herself and Dustin was reading some book, and he didn’t want to disturb them. “Maybe we should clean you up.”

 

The kid just blinked at him. Cor sighed and picked him up, carrying him over to the little bathroom that was connected to the room. All it had was a toilet and a sink, but the boy was small enough that he could be sat on the counter and washed up right there. He sat him down and pulled his shirt off, cleaning him the best he could manage in such a small space. Then he went about carefully disinfecting all the various little wounds on the boy’s arms and sticking bandaids with those weird _Moogle, Stiltzkin, & Mog _ and _Li’l Malbuddy_ cartoon characters on them. He didn’t put up any kind of struggle like kids usually did at bath time, though he did whimper a bit when the wounds were being cleaned. Once he was finally as clean as he was gonna get and covered in bandaids, Cor slipped a slightly too big chocobo shirt over the little boy’s head, and pulled on a pair of matching jeans that had a chocobo stitched onto one of the pockets.

 

“There ya go. Must feel a lot better,” He said. The kid didn’t respond, just stared with big, purple-ish blue eyes. “No, I got it. You won’t feel better until you eat something.”

 

So Cor scooped him back up and went back into their compartment. He dug through one of the plastic bags and pulled out several different snacks- gysahl chips, kupo nuts, applesauce, rainbow grape candy, dried fruits. None of it was particularly healthy but it was all stuff a kid would eat and it was the cheapest they had. They could get a real meals once they reached Tenebrae.

 

He tossed the food on the bed and sat down, sitting the kid on his lap. “Alright, uh… Which do you think would be best?” He picked up the bag of dried fruit. “This probably has the most nutrients… you could use those.” He sighed. The kid was practically skin and bones. What had they fed him before? Nothing, by the looks of it.

 

“Alright.” He ripped open the bag and held it for the kid. He didn’t seem to know what to do, so Cor pulled a piece out and took a bite. He seemed to get the message and cautiously pulled out what looked like dried apple and took a bite, keeping his eyes on Cor the entire time. Cor just nodded, and the kid dug in.

 

It wasn’t long before he had eaten everything they had bought and had fallen asleep. Cor just smiled a little and laid back with the kid in his arms, letting himself drift off. In that moment, he was certain he had made the right decision.

 

_October 27th, M.E. 738, Tenebrae Station, Tenebrae_

 

Tenebrae was a far smaller place than the Kingdom of Lucis, and its main city was much, much smaller than the city of Insomnia. Despite this, and despite being ruled over largely by the controlling hands of the Empire of Niflheim, it bustled with life, with people, and with culture. Even in the middle of the night.

 

The second they stepped off the train they were bombarded with sounds, smells, and sights of all different kinds. Life always buzzed around the train station, as it was right next to the city’s main market. It was nothing that the three Crownsguard weren’t used to. The markets and streets outside of the Citadel back home were three times as busy as this place. But the kid wasn’t used to it and immediately buried his face in Cor’s shoulder, trying to cover his ears as much as possible.

 

Cor awkwardly patted his back. “Don’t worry, kid. No one’s gonna hurt ya.”

 

“That’s debatable,” Dustin muttered. Cor shot him a look, but he just shrugged. “We’re not out of the city yet.”

 

Monica sighed. “He could’ve put it better, but he’s right. C’mon, let’s go find the open inn and call the boss.”

 

While Cor was technically the one in charge of this whole mission, he let Monica take the lead in finding the safehouse, or “the open inn,” as they were supposed to call it while still in enemy controlled territory. She was a lot better at making it look like they were just a part of the crowd, and anyway, he was a bit too preoccupied with keeping a terrified four year old calm.

 

The kid was alternating between rubbing his eyes and covering his ears, sniffling and quietly whining as he did so. Cor rubbed his back, not sure of what else to do. He saw parents out with their children around Insomnia all the time but he had never considered paying attention to how they cared for their children in public. Taking care of a child himself had never even crossed his mind as a possibility, whether they were his own children or if he was just babysitting. Ever since he was fifteen, all he had thought about was protecting the crown family and the people of Lucis. He would never regret that, but he was beginning to regret not paying attention to the lives of the strangers he had dedicated himself to protecting.

 

He had no clue what he was doing. All he knew how to do was to fight, to give and to take orders. He didn’t know the next thing about kids, let alone an unimaginably traumatized one.

 

The kid whimpered when something banged nearby. Cor huffed and wrapped his arms tighter around the little boy, whispering that they’d be okay and nothing was gonna hurt them. Some soldier he was, he thought. Couldn’t even adapt to the situation at hand. Whatever. They just had to get back to Insomnia and his good deed would be done.

 

After a good ten minutes of pushing their way through the nighttime crowds of the marketplace, they finally turned down a large alleyway. About halfway down it, a neon sign reading “INN” in big, bright blue letters hung over a nondescript door.

 

“Here we are!” Monica said, trying to push more cheer into the exclamation than she normally would. Probably for the kid’s sake.

 

They made their way inside and up to the front desk. A street-clothed crownsguard, fresh out of training from the looks of it, was sat at the counter, tapping away on a computer. When he caught sight of his three superiors, he stood up and went to salute. Before he could raise his hand he faltered, remembering that his job was meant to be _undercover_ , and sat back down.

 

“Uh, can I help you sir?” He looked up at Cor, glanced at the boy in his arms, and then back at Cor.

 

“Yeah. We need a room and room service.” He dropped a few gil on the counter, along with his Crownsguard ID hidden underneath the bills. The clerk pulled them under the counter and checked the ID, then typed something on the computer.

 

“Okay. You’re all set. Room 2C, on the second floor.” He grabbed the keys off the hook behind him them and handed them to Cor, giving the kid he was holding one last look before going back to whatever he was doing before. “Room service will be up in half an hour.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

_October 28th, M.E. 738, Inn, Tenebrae Marketplace, Tenebrae_

 

Cor hung up the practically ancient long distance comm device, letting out the single most exasperated sigh he could.

 

Four hours. That was how long Clarus had insisted on questioning and nagging and pestering Cor about his decision to kidnap a child from a Niff base. He had to describe his every last thought and action several times over in increasing detail before his boss came to any sort of understanding of what he had done. Cor had even had to appeal to Clarus’s own fatherly side, bringing up the man’s own young son. It didn’t sit well with him, but it worked, seeing as they had finally ended the phone call.

 

He glanced at the clock that sat on the nearby nightstand. 3 AM. Fantastic. Their boat back to Lucis left at 9 AM that morning, so it seemed like he wasn’t going to be getting much sleep.

 

At least he wasn’t alone in that. The kid was sitting up on one of the two beds in the small hotel room, staring with the same big, tired eyes. Cor felt a small pang of relief that he didn’t look afraid anymore. At least, not of him. Seeing the poor boy look so scared of everything, like he was afraid but prepared for anything to hurt him, really tore at his heart.

 

He continued his efforts of trying not to think of what exactly those horrible fucking Niffs did to this kid. He moved over to the bed, sitting down next to him. The boy just kept staring.

 

“Ya know, it would’ve been fine if you had gone to sleep without me. You’re allowed to do that.”

 

He didn’t respond.

 

Cor sighed again, and laid down. “Can you even understand what I’m saying?”

 

The boy frowned in a way that almost seemed like… guilt.

 

A thought crawled its way into Cor’s mind like a spider creeping up on its prey. He was probably the first person to ever show the kid any sort of kindness. He’d probably spent his entire life, ever since he was _born_ , being poked and prodded at by cold scientists and researchers, told exactly what to do and how to behave, and beaten if he didn’t comply.

 

He was only four.

 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Cor finally responded. “Just realized I never told you my name.”

 

The kid looked back him, guilt still shining in his eyes, but a certain amount of curiosity and confusion hidden behind that. It made him look closer to a normal child.

 

“My name is Cor.” He paused for a second. Did the kid have a name? He hadn’t even thought to ask. “Do you have a name?”

 

He was silent for a moment, his face twisting into a look of confliction. After a moment, he opened his mouth and spoke, actually spoke, his voice scratchy from disuse. “N-i-P-zero-one-three-five-seven, zero-five-nine-five-three-two-three-four,” he recited carefully.

 

Cor blinked at him in disbelief. He sat up, still just staring, trying to figure how to even respond to that.

 

Monica and Dustin had the same idea, as they were now sitting up and staring from the other bed and the couch, respectively.

 

“By the Six,” Monica exclaimed quietly.

 

“That’s…” Cor had to clear his throat. “That’s not a name, that’s a serial number.”

 

The little boy looked between the three of them, the three big adults all just staring at him with expressions he probably couldn’t begin to understand. His eyes darted around in confusion and, once again, fear. A whimper escaped his lips and he quickly slammed a hand over his mouth, using his other to rub at his eyes, trying to stop himself from crying.

 

Cor put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, but he just flinched away, nearly falling off the bed as he did. The crownsguard tried again, this time reaching slowly and placing his hand carefully gently. After a moment, the boy curled himself up into a ball against the man’s side, shaking with silent sobs.

 

“We can’t call him that,” Dustin said.

 

“Obviously not!” Monica snapped.

 

“Hey, kiddo, it’s alright.” Cor ran a comforting hand through the boy’s hair. It felt like straw. “It’s okay, you can cry. Why don’t we… why don’t we think of a name for you? Find one that you really, really like.”

 

The boy didn’t respond, but he did start crying. Cor could feel the warm tears pooling onto his shirt.

 

“We’ll find a name you like and we’ll call you that. Okay?” He rubbed small circles on the boy’s back. He couldn’t stand seeing him so upset like this. Is that how parents felt whenever their children cried?

 

He had a feeling this kid was going to get him in a lot more trouble than he originally thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy, so this took a whole year to write! Oops!  
> So I can't really promise when the next chapter will be out, but I promise I am writing it and it won't take an entire year to come out this time. Life just gets in the way sometimes, ya know?  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this!  
> ~Mel


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